Escape Gone Awry: Man Tries to Leave Joplin, Gets Caught in Tornado

When Will Lynch of Joplin, Mo. heard a tornado was coming, he and his girlfriend decided they should get out of town.

They quickly learned that though you can chase storms, you can’t outrun them. Headed towards the interstate in an effort to escape before the tornado hit they found themselves right in the middle of the storm–at the intersection where half the casualties occurred.

After seeing a dumpster go airborne, Lynch knew he had to pull over. “I pulled up next to a building to try to get the building to block the wind,” he told CNN. He and his girlfriend lay down and tried to weather the storm together as destruction ripped through the city.

Though they emerged with nothing more than a few scratches, Lynch’s pickup truck suffered a different fate. “The truck is completely gone, seeing pictures of it…I know that we’re lucky to be alive,” he said. “We’re both doing extremely well for what we went through.” (via CNN)